Kevin Baxter is running for the Rexburg City Council. In an interview with BYU-Idaho Radio, he explained why he is running, what he would bring to the position, what issues he would focus on and more if he is elected. He can be reached onInstagram, Facebook, or his personal phone at (208) 206-2090. Election Day is Nov. 4. Candidate Night will be tomorrow, Oct. 21, starting at 7 p.m. in the Romance Theater. Below is a transcript of the interview. It has been lightly edited for clarity.
Hannah: Can you tell me about your background and how it led you to running for City Council?
Kevin Baxter: Interesting thing, a lot of people in Rexburg have a very sour taste in their mouth towards students and towards anybody that comes from any city or state that sounds anything like Mexico or California. So, you say San Francisco, San Jose, I come from Las Vegas, Nevada, and people instantly go, “Eh, I don't want to be there. That's terrible. I can't stand it. I don't want to have anything to do with this guy. He's terrible. Don't listen to him.”
But, I actually, my family moved here with me when I was 16 in 2018. And so, we moved here, and I was instantly in love. It's a slower pace, the lifestyle is a lot more green. You can actually smell fresh air. Where we lived, our street did not have 14 to 20 police cars blocking the whole street because of gang and drugs every two weeks because my neighbors were just involved in the craziest things. And so, you move here, and it's just quiet, it's peaceful, it's safe. And now that we're seeing a continued exodus of people coming here from California, Las Vegas, Texas, and other places throughout the U.S., there's kind of a lot of different things coming together.
There's people coming here from cultures where maybe they've never seen a pig before. And they've had pulled pork sandwiches at restaurants before, but they've never seen a pig. And so, they come here, and you see several people who are just growing pigs in their backyard, and it just seems foreign to them. My goal is to represent the people that I represent. So, if I get elected, my plan is to be here for the people, not for any institution or establishment. I'm not here for Valley Wide Ag. I'm not here for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'm here to represent the people that vote me in. So, if that means that when I get elected and somebody proposes an ordinance that maybe people who are members of the Church or maybe an agronomist might disagree with, if the majority of the people that I answer to say, “No, we don't want that.” Then I have to oppose that.
The way that I've found myself morally is I'm pretty good at standing on my own morals and grounds. But if I'm put in a position where I have to represent someone else, even if I disagree with something this person says, even if I think that this person is just annoying and they're arrogant and they shouldn't be allowed to have an opinion, if I have to represent this person, I will represent that person. And the way that I let myself go to sleep at night is to say, “Okay, that's not my opinion.” My job at this point in time is not to voice my own opinion. My job at this point in time is to represent those people.
Hannah: What would you say sets you apart from other candidates?
Kevin Baxter: I'm younger than 30. That might not be a good joke, but I'm 23 years old and how many 23-year-olds are entering to run for city government here in Rexburg that are not students or associated with the college.
Hannah: What's an issue you want to focus on if elected?
Kevin Baxter: There's actually three issues that I've come across. The first one, I don't know if you're familiar with the city website, but the city website currently has a domain of dot org instead of dot gov. And I've been doing a little bit of research and found that that's actually a really easy way for people who want to launder money or do any other kind of shady activity or for third party people who are maybe more computer savvy to hack into the city and actually steal money or information. Let's say that we have a person of interest who's sheltered here in Rexburg under witness protection. Somebody can hack into the city records, and they can use that data in order to cause this person who's under witness protection harm.
Hannah: And the other two issues?
Kevin Baxter: So, the other two issues, aside from the city web domain, the police station that they're pursuing a bond on and allocation of assets, specifically where's the money going? So, I don't know if it's going to be set up in a way where should I get elected, I can be on a panel or a committee to specifically audit the city finances and specifically audit what's going on. Because a lot of people are like, “Oh yeah, let's vote for this $22 million police station bond.” Well, before we vote on the police station bond, let's just take a second to recognize what a bond is. A bond is, according to the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), a bond is set up as a private loan. So, we sell a loan. This is a share. This is a share of our city. So now part of our city is for sale and we sell it to private investors who are now going to have a say over what goes on in the city government and the city of Rexburg itself. So, for me I’m all about giving the power to the people and trying to bring it back down to the local level if we go back from the local level and now we have private vested interests and parties that we don't know with money going into our town we don't know what the ties to that money are.
Hannah: And the last issue?
Kevin Baxter: So, the two issues. The first one is the misallocation of resources. Like, what's being spent on what? Like, why did we have two exits converted to diverging diamonds instead of just having stoplights put in? And then there's the Trejo/Yellowstone light where we've just recently had an accident because it doesn't really make sense to have a light there.
Hannah: How would you address the current housing crisis here in Rexburg?
Kevin Baxter: Well, it starts in a lot of places in a lot of ways. I'm not sure exactly yet what the limits of this office would be. But if I could, a thing that I would try to do is I would try to put caps on rent. There's a square footage calculator. If you go to the apartment unit, let's say it's an apartment. We're just talking about apartments, not even talking about houses, but the apartment unit is 500 square feet. Why is it acceptable for a leasing agency to sell that to a private individual at $1,200 a month?
So, I would try to cap that down to maybe $800 a month so that that way — hey, I understand that there are profits and things that we have to watch out for on the business side. But when a two-bedroom, one bath apartment is going for $1,500 a month and you don't have a beachfront view and you don't have a waiter bringing you breakfast and lunch every day, what are you paying for?
Hannah: What are your thoughts on extending 5th West?
Kevin Baxter: Rexburg's going to change, and this is one of the things that sucks. The older people that live here who are like, “I remember back when a movie ticket was 75 cents and you could put gas in your car for 22 cents a gallon.” Great, we wish for those days too. I drive a truck; I would rather 22 cents a gallon. But we can’t stay stuck living in the past. Rexburg is going to change whether we want it to or not. One of my goals is to insert my hand into the change so that we can make it change if it's going to change, we can either make it change slower or so that the changes that happen are fast enough in a transition. But, they make it so that that way people are still happy with Rexburg. People still come here to live and people go, you know, I graduated here. Maybe I had a couple of bad memories at the college, but this is a really good city to live in. And so, the goal is to make Rexburg a place that people actually want to go.
When people hear of Rexburg, any other city, you go to Rigby, you go, ugh, Rexburg. You go to Idaho Falls, ugh, Rexburg. You go to Ashton, ugh, Rexburg. Everybody kind of has this sour taste in their mouth, even some people who live here locally. And my goal is to try to get that sour taste out of their mouth and turn it into something that people can actually respect and appreciate.
Hannah: What message do you have for voters as we approach Election Day?
Kevin Baxter: Well, first off, if you're not registered to vote, register to vote. My second thing to say is, you know, while I joke about being young and having energy and all of this, why do we vote? You know, if we're going to vote just for the sake of voting, why are you voting? But if you're going to vote because you actually care, if you want to vote because you want somebody who’s actually committed to the purposes and causes that they're talking about, then make sure you know who those people are. Like, if you're going to research your candidates, yeah, research your candidates. My wife was researching the candidates because she's like, “Oh yeah, you're on the list and there's a bunch of these other people.” And she tried to look some of them up. Some of them aren't even on social media, and I was like, “Well, that's okay. I wouldn't be on social media if I had a choice.” I'm just on social media because I'm trying to move forward in life. I'm looking at trying to start a couple of different businesses as well.
It's hard to research people unless you talk to people. If you want specific things, say it. Like don't just sit in your den griping about how you can't stand the city and all the roads suck and everything's terrible. You need to actually go to City Council and you need to go to Planning and Zoning and you need to reach out to the people who represent you and say, “Hey, I'm not satisfied with the service and job that you've been doing. This is my problem. What can you do to fix it?” And where can people find more information on your campaign or contact you? So, can I give my phone number? Yeah, that's all right. So I'm doing a zero dollar campaign because I want people to know that I can't be bought. I can't be bribed. I can't be paid for.
I'm my own man. I will say what I have to say and I will do what I'm going to do. But my phone number is 208-206-2090. And I work crazy long hours. So, if I don't get right back to you, I'll have to call you back. But I will call you back. I'm on social media. I'm on Instagram and Facebook. I'm on Instagram quite a bit, but I have all of my social media notifications turned off because I find social media to be a detriment to my focus. It messes me up. It makes me just lose focus and I lose my workflow for the day.
Hannah: What's the handle for the Instagram account?
Kevin Baxter: So the Instagram account is my name is Kevin K-E-V-I-N-J-B-A-X-T-E-R-I-D. So, it's like Kevin J. Baxter, Idaho.
And then the Facebook is just my name's, Kevin J. Baxter.
Hannah: Perfect. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Kevin Baxter: Thank you.